Tag Archives: wolves

Little red grammar hood

Red, black and grey illustration of Little Red Riding Hood walking through the woods
Image by Hansuan Fabregas

I was a language unrecognised by my human family. They fashioned a fabric from the loom of their grammar—the warp of their subjects forced into concord with the weft of their verbs, the fibres dyed vermillion, the colour of shame.

A red thread of syntax tethered me to their path, my vision obstructed by a heavily draping hood.

So constrained was life within this cloth cage that I lost the old rhythms, the old melodies, the chords that once formed my being. But some resounding strain pulled me back, through the dark wood, to the house where my Grandmother lived. 

At first I did not recognise her.

With claw-like determination and incisor-sharp will, she had sliced through the threads of her own family’s grammar, and now she stood before me, firm and free.

I threw myself into the soft fur of her embrace. The red cloak dropped like a morpheme, unbound.

Would you like to know more about this story? I talk about it in Episode 88 of Structured Visions, ‘Grammar shame’. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you like to listen.

Possessed

Wolf pack on a rock formation
Photo by Thomas Bonometti

Each fibre of fur is a strand of awareness. Each press of paw pad on the earth a moment of contact. We gather under the full moon in a sacred geometry as aligned with the astronomical expanses as any stone circle. The finely tuned notes of this howling symphony transmit the Earth’s wisdom to the stars.

A litter of freshly whelped cubs is both a miracle and a liability. We watch them each diligently, perhaps obsessively.

At the first sign of possession, a decision must be made. By what might the youngster be possessed? Can such possession be outgrown?

We’re on guard for clear signs the taint is growing stronger. Possession becomes apparent in the grammar of the cub’s eyes as he stares at the mother. ‘Mine,’ he thinks. He notes a unique fleck of white below the dam’s chin. ‘Hers.’

Possession destroys unity and must be stopped before it can grow. A merciful killing is sometimes required. Such measures pain us, though, and howls become mourning songs.

If we are travelling near a place where people live, we’ll sometimes deposit the cub on the threshold of a human dwelling. We stay distant, waiting for the cub’s new owners to discover it there, their miracle puppy, their adorable stray.

Would you like to know more about this story? I discuss it in Episode 79 of Structured Visions. Subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you like to listen.